Describing the Setting

In the first month of school I taught my students how to make characters come alive in a narrative. Now it’s time to focus on another important element of a story: the setting. If you just tell kids that they need to describe the setting of their story using their five senses they are likely to come up with sentences such as these: I heard an owl. I could smell roses. I saw some birds. It is important to teach children how to come up with strong sentences when describing sensory details.

In my twenty years of being a classroom teacher there are a few students who stick out in my mind as being truly gifted writers. I had this third grade student about ten years ago at Adams School who had a natural ability to pull the reader into his story. He knew how to make a setting feel real by engaging the reader’s senses. He didn’t need to be taught how to describe a setting. He just put himself right where his story was happening and captured the sort of details that remind you of a poet or an artist. Unfortunately, most students don’t come equipped with this gift!

I do a series of workshops to teach kids how to describe a setting. In the first lesson we create a descriptive paragraph together of a familiar place. In the next workshops I show my students models of excellent setting descriptions from literature, and they respond to questions that require a careful study of the pieces.

Workshop 1

Goal: To get students to understand how to use sensory details to describe a setting.

Reminder to students: The three important elements in a story are:
1. Character
2. Setting
3. Plot

In order for a reader to fully engage with the characters in a story there needs to be a strong sense of place and time.

These are the steps I follow:
1. I ask the class for suggestions of a place they enjoy going to, and then we vote for the one we like best
2. Picture the setting – I ask them to close their eyes and imagine being in this place. What can they see, hear, smell, feel, taste?
3. Table it – I put up a table with columns for each sense and list their responses.
4. Writing the paragraph – I encourage them to give me sentences for the paragraph. First, a topic sentence, then supporting sentences. To avoid beginning sentences with “I saw …” or “I heard …”, etc. I encourage the kids to make the sensory detail the subject of the sentence.

Here is a sample lesson that I did with a past third grade class:

Step One: Picture the Setting

I asked the kids to name a place they would like to describe. Someone suggested a garden and everyone liked the idea. I asked them to close their eyes and think of a garden that they know well and like.
Picture this garden in your mind. What do you see? Look all over. Look to your left. What do you see? Look straight in front of you. What do you see? Look to your right.
Now take a deep breath. Breathe in the smells. What do you smell? What do the smells remind you of? Listen. Be very quiet and listen to all the sounds. Now take off your shoes. What do you feel under your feet? Touch something in the garden. How does it feel? Does it remind you of something? Okay, open your eyes now!

Step Two: Table It!

I put up this table.

Sights      Smells    Sounds   Feel

I can't seem to create a table here, so just visualize the cells!

So tell me what you saw in your garden?

Student: Flowers.
Me:         I want to make a picture of those flowers in my mind. Can you tell me more about about these flowers.
Student:  They were roses.
Me:        Can you tell me some details about the roses so I can picture them?
Student: They were pink roses.
Me:         Good. I wrote Pink roses in the table. What else did you see?

Each time a student gave me a vague response I pressed them to be as specific as possible. I recorded their responses in the table.

Sights                   Sounds              Smells                             Feel

Pink roses                 Buzzing bees          roses smelled like perfume Soft grass
Small white daisies   Chirping birds herbs                                      Smooth petals
Plump, red tomatoes Water fountain       Wet dirt                                  Crumbly dirt
Large oak tree

Step Three: Time to Write

Since this was the first formal lesson on teaching kids to write about a setting, the writing part was a directed activity intended to model strong sentences.

Let’s look at the table and write sentences about the things we listed. We need to make sentences that are strong. Do not start any sentence with “I see ...”, “I hear … “, “I smell … “, or “I feel … “! First we need a topic sentence. Who has a good idea for one?

Student A: My grandparents have a beautiful garden.

Me: Wonderful. Anyone else with an idea?

Student B:  I love the garden because it is peaceful.

A few other kids shared ideas. I went with Student A’s sentence, and wrote it on the board.

Me: Now we need sentences that give details. Who would like to make a sentence about the pink roses?

Student C:  The first thing that you see are the pink roses.

Me: That’s a very good sentence. Where exactly would you see the roses?

After some prompting we decided that the roses were around a fountain.

I went through the items listed in the table and encouraged the students to think up creative sentences. For example, rather than “I hear bees buzzing” I asked them to think about where you would see the bees and what they would be doing. We ended up with the following paragraph:

My grandparents have a beautiful garden. The first thing you see are pink roses around a fountain. They give off a sweet perfume. Pretty white daisies grow near the tomato plants. Bees buzz in and out of the flowers. A hummingbird beats its wings and makes a whirring sound. The soft grass tickles my feet as I walk to the tomato plant to pick a juicy, red tomato. I lean against the big oak tree and the bark feels rough on my skin. I love this garden.

The final part of the lesson is having the kids copy down the paragraph they had generated. If time permits they could illustrate this setting.

This year’s third grade class chose the pool as their favorite place to be. Using their responses we came up with the following paragraph:

I had an amazing time at the pool. My friends were playing “sharks chasing dolphins”. Kids were laughing and splashing about. The water was clear blue and pretty. A strong smell of chlorine filled the air. I was swimming in the cool water when the sun hit my back. I feel excited when I am at the pool.

I will briefly describe workshops 2 and 3 in a new blog entry.